N. Scott Robinson

N. Scott Robinson, world percussionist, scholar, and teacher, has performed on the Grammy Award-winning CD, Harlem Renaissance with the Benny Carter Big Band. He has also performed or recorded with Glen Velez, Marilyn Horne, Paul Winter Consort, Malcolm Dalglish, Robert “Tigger” Benford, Umayalpuram K. Sivaraman, Howard Levy, Layne Redmond, John Clark, Steve Gorn, Jon Gibson, Jeanie Bryson, R. Carlos Nakai, Peter Phippen, Vivien Ellis, Gary Stroutsos, Art Baron, J. D. Parran, Eugene Friesen, Paul Halley, Slats Klug, Bob Cheevers, Sandy Weltman, Carolbeth True, Gordon Lowry, Nóiríin Ní Riain, Peter Zummo, Daniel Palomo Vinuesa, Randy Crafton, Mark Holland, Peter Mayer, Jim Mayer, The Cleveland Orchestra, Kyle Bynoe, and Gerald Alston.

Scott has worked under the direction of composers John Cage, George Crumb, Halim El-Dabh, and Annea Lockwood, having recorded two CDs with the Annea Lockwood Ensemble. He has studied with Peter Erskine, Glen Velez, William Moersch, Naná Vasconcelos, Malcolm Dalglish, Keith Copeland, and Shona musicians Chaka Chawasarira and Cosmas Magaya.

Scott has produced two CDs of his music including World View (1994) and Things That Happen Fast (2001) both released and distributed internationally by United One Records/Qualiton Imports. He also has an instructional video published called Hand Drumming: Exercises for Unifying Technique (1996) distributed by Wright Hand Drum.

As a solo artist, Scott brings a breadth of diverse experience in world percussion traditions to the stage. He has given clinics on diverse styles of hand drumming at the Japan Percussion Center in Tokyo, Japan in 1994, for the Percussive Arts Society Washington-DC Day of Percussion in 1995, and at the Percussive Arts Society International Conventions in Nashville, TN in 1996, and Anaheim, California in 1997. His clinics have featured a wide range of instruments such as udu, riq, bendir, tar, ghaval, frame drum, djembe, congas, and mbira. In 1999, he was invited to teach samul nori percussionists West African rhythm for The Seoul Performing Arts Company in South Korea. In 2000, Scott toured Australia with Malcolm Dalglish performing his own solo pieces for tambourines and a variety of folk music. Scott was the only soloist invited to perform at the 2001 Korea Drum Festival in Seoul, Korea. In 2003, he was invited to be a part of the Seoul and Pusan modern dance improvisation festivals in South Korea. His performance experience includes appearances at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Apollo Theater, St. Peters, Cathedral of St. John the Divine, and the Knitting Factory all in New York City as well as The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington-DC, Severance Hall in Cleveland, Blues Alley in Baltimore, and internationally in Tokyo/Japan, Seoul/South Korea, and Victoria/Australia.

Scott currently teaches at Towson University in Maryland and has also taught at Shenandoah University in Virginia, The University of Akron in Ohio, and at Kent State University in Ohio. His interviews and articles have been published in Modern Drummer, Percussive Notes, Rhythm, Dulcimer Players News, Batera & Percussão (Brazil), and the Continuum Encyclopedia of Popular Music of the World, Volume 2: Performance and Production, among others.

As a composer, his percussion music has been published and internationally distributed by HoneyRock Publishing. Scott has presented papers at regional and international meetings of The Society for Ethnomusicology. He is a graduate of Rutgers University (B.A. in 1994) and Kent State University (M.A. in 2002). His music has been featured on the nationally syndicated Public Radio International show Echoes by John Diliberto, among others. Scott has finished a book titled The New Percussionist in Jazz: New Techniques & Expanded Instrumentation.